Woman's Hour - Professor Dame Carol Robinson, Leader Interview: The Conservative’s Maria Caulfield for Rishi Sunak, Michelle De Swarte

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

British scientist Dame Carol Robinson, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a trailblazer in the field of mass spectrometry, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during this year’s European Inventor Award 2024 ceremony. She will be first ever British winner. She is receiving the award not just for her outstanding work but also for championing women in STEM. She joins Nuala McGovern to explain why she’s passionate about women in science. Woman’s Hour has already spoken to five of the seven main political parties in the run up to the general election. Today, Nuala speaks to Maria Caulfield, Minister of State for Mental Health and Women’s Health Strategy, representing the leader of the Conservative party, Rishi Sunak. Woman's Hour invited Labour's Sir Keir Starmer on to the programme as part of our series of party leader interviews ahead of the general election. Labour did not put forward a representative for this interview, so we hear from Ione Wells, BBC political correspondent, about Labour's manifesto pledges regarding women.By the time she was 19, Michelle De Swarte had gone from a council estate in London to the catwalks of Manhattan. Her twenties were a swirl of parties and high end glamour but by her thirties she was broke and in need - as she once put it - of a “new personality”. Desperate to find a way out of fashion, she reinvented herself as a stand-up comedian. Michelle De Swarte joins Nuala to talk about putting some of her own experiences into a new BBC comedy, Spent. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Olivia Skinner

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, you are indeed very welcome to Woman's Hour. Now, in case you have not been paying attention, we have a general election on Thursday. And so today on Woman's Hour, it will bring us to the conclusion of our leaders' interviews. Over the course of the campaign, we have invited all the leaders of the main political parties to discuss their policies.

Maria Caulfield, Minister for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy, will be here in place of the Conservative leader Rishi Sunak a little later this hour. We did also invite the leader of the Labour Party, offering a variety of dates, but they were not able to provide a representative. Our political correspondent, Ione Wells, will be here to speak about the pledges that Labour have made this election.

Also today, controversy for footballer Jude Bellingham, who is on the front of lots of the papers today, for a gesture he made after scoring against Slovakia with a goal that keeps England in the Euros tournament. Bellingham was seen making a crotch-grabbing gesture towards the Slovakian bench after scoring in stoppage time. And now UEFA, the European football governing body, is investigating whether he committed, and I quote, a potential violation of the basic rules of decent conduct, unquote. Bellingham has denied the gesture was aimed at England's opponents.

He said on social media that it was an inside joke directed towards some close friends. If he is found to have breached the rules, the 21-year-old could face a suspension, a fine or both. I want to know what you think about this. Is the gesture inappropriate, crass behaviour that should come with consequences or perhaps

a harmless act in the heat of a jubilant celebration or maybe something else I want to hear from you you can text the programme the number is

84844 text charged at the standard message rate on social media we're at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website

for a WhatsApp message or a voice note that number 03700100444 or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note. That number is 03 700 100 444. Also, we have the comedian, the actor, the former model, Michelle Desforte, on her new comedy, Spent. That's all coming up. But let me begin with my first guest this morning. It is Professor Dame Carol Robinson.

She is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. And last week it was announced that she's the first British person to be awarded the European Inventor Award for Lifetime Achievement. And that is by the European Patent Office. She receives this award in recognition of her work

in the field of mass spectrometry. Yes, we're going to learn what that means. I'm delighted to welcome Professor Dame Carol Robinson to Women's Hour. Manny, congratulations on the award. Well, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here. Now, when I say congratulations on a Lifetime Achievement Award, what pictures come to your mind about your past?

Actually, Lifetime Achievement, I think, makes me sound very old, which hopefully I'm not. I'm delighted because I started very early in this career, age 16, and now age 68, I received this award. So wonderful recognition for me. I have pictures of myself as this very young technician, and now as this more seasoned professor. So, yes, wonderful to receive this. And what about that term mass spectrometry? Tell me a little bit about your work in laywoman's terms. If you don't mind me correcting the pronunciation slightly, it's mass spectrometry. And what it actually is, is as it says, it measures

the mass very carefully and gives you a spectrum, which is a sort of whole range of masses. And from this, we can read how a protein or your proteins or my proteins are modified by disease or by having taken particular drugs, etc. So it's a sort of barcode if you like of your proteins and how does that impact people in a day-to-day way we are hoping to use it to discover new drugs and to understand the effect of drugs more efficiently. So, for example, if you've got many modifications on your proteins, some drugs may not work for you. And if we can measure that and inform you,

then you will have a better chance of getting the right medication. I could see you were listening quite intently to the programme that came before this one as they were talking about mental health because depression is one of the areas that you have studied. Tell me a little bit about that, particularly when it comes to personalised medicine. Yeah, no, I was fascinated by the programme before, so I have to be as equally fascinating.

And one of the things I was thinking about when they were talking about ketamine is that's actually something we study also, and how the markers in the brain receptors actually change depending upon, we believe, depending upon depression. So the effects of ketamine may be very different in different brains. And so that's what we're trying to understand. And then to see if you would be or I would be a good candidate for that treatment.

And that is a drug treatment that people, some people have had great success with. And then, so I suppose really you are looking forward into the potential of personalised medicines or indeed the role of proteins within that. Yes, it's exactly right. So looking at the possibilities of being able to read off your barcode and then prescribe in a much more intelligent way rather than sometimes we do a bit of a trial and error. You know, maybe you could take these and come back if you don't feel so good, but actually having a much more tailored and understood prescription.

Yes, which I often think with medicines, I try something for six weeks and come back, which is an awfully long time, particularly if it hasn't worked. And then to go again, I'm sure lots of my listeners will relate to that. I'm thinking back to you as a 16 year old girl entering this field. That's so male dominated, even still. So what was it like back then? It was very dominated but actually I didn't really notice I didn't really know any difference I was at college I was on the day release course and there's myself and a friend of mine and the rest was all male so and I was also in a college where they taught minors and dockers. So it was an incredibly male-oriented environment.

And I just learned to survive in that particular field, I guess. And as I say, I didn't really notice it until people used to point it out to me. And they'd say, oh, isn't it a bit unusual? And I'd say, oh, yeah, I guess it is. But I didn't feel that. I actually enjoyed competing with the boys in my class at that stage. So you didn't feel that it was a challenge or could potentially hold you back in any way? I didn't at that stage because I was young.

I was kind of fearless. As I got older, maybe I did become more aware. I was more sensitive to comments that might have been made and not intentionally set to undermine me, but sometimes they did. Do you want to elaborate? Do I? Let's think. So let's think of some examples where I felt slightly put down. Often people would ask me if I couldn't do something because of childcare. And I always felt that assumed that I was just this machine who was working, but really, I was mainly concerned about childcare. I actually didn't feel that that was very fair, because people would say, where is X male colleague? Oh, he's running his company. But where's Carol?

Oh, she's looking after the children. No, actually, I also run a company. Why would you also assume that I'm just doing childcare all the time? It's a really interesting one to point out for our audience also in 2024, as we talk about, continue to talk about these issues,

which some may find disappointing as well but you did raise a family have a flexible career you thought in some ways which you know speaking to the first female professor of chemistry at both Oxford and Cambridge universities tell me how you did it yeah no I I'd like to point out to the listeners that actually it's a wonderful career to have. It is flexible. I could go to every sports day. I could be at any event that I chose to do. I could arrange it such that I had that real flexibility.

So I think that's often overlooked. People say science is such hard work. You have to be so committed. And all of that's true. But you could be committed in your own time. So I could get up super early, have my day, go to the lab, then arrange to be free in the afternoon. So I think it's a very flexible career. And I really would like people to think that they could have this career. It's a great career to have. You have said as a scientist that you've always been fearless about going in your own direction. Where did you get that from?

I actually think that if you leave school at 16, maybe you have this freedom from fear. I always thought, well, I'm going to do this. And if it doesn't work out, I'll go and do something else. I hadn't sort of invested all that time at university in all of those things that most of my colleagues had done, I guess. So I thought, I'm going to do this question. And a lot of people said to me, it'll never work. And I said, okay, I'll do something else. If it doesn't work, I'm not going to be afraid to do something in case it's not successful. I realized that I'd found something, I'd discovered something, I wanted to keep at it. Many people tried to persuade me otherwise, but I was determined that it was going to work in the end. And so it did, as we have heard. In the news this week,

we've heard that the number of girls choosing to study computer science at GCSE level has more than halved since 2015, now at 21%. Is that a concern from a university's point of view? Or are these skills that students can learn at university in STEM subjects, for example, science, technology, engineering and mathematics? It's true that you can pick these up at university, but it's so much better to have done it at school. I mean, this was not an option for me when I was at school obviously we didn't know what computer was at that stage but I realized how important it was and before I went back to work at Oxford I willingly put myself on a course to update this but to learn those skills because I realized I'd

missed the whole IT revolution so it's really important to get those skills. It comes into everything, of course, and ever more so now because of AI and all of the machine learning that we're doing. At the beginning, my understanding is you really had to fight for people to believe you had uncovered something important. Tell us a little bit about your discoveries. Yeah, so as I'd been doing this since I was 16, I felt I had a sort of really close connection

with the mass spectrometer and I really understood it. And I started to see things that other people might have seen but dismissed or dismissed because they thought, no, it can't be right, it's an artifact and I was thinking no no it's not an artifact because if I do this I see this I know it has some meaning so I just followed it through but I would go to the US for example and some of my colleagues later told me that we used they used to say oh that girl when is she going to stop doing those experiments fortunately I didn't hear them say that and I just carried on. And now they're very much on my side and they really believe in it.

So I suppose it sounds like do the work, stay on your path and don't give up. I recommend that path. Congratulations again, Professor Dame Carol Robinson, on her award, which is a Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Patent Office for European Inventor. Thank you so much for joining us and starting us off this morning on Woman's Hour. Lots of you getting in touch about Jude Bellingham

and the gesture. Is Bellingham's gesture worthy of a suspension or a fine? Yes, absolutely. It was an obscene gesture. And even if it was done as a joke, the amount of money he's given for playing, plus the influence he has on younger people, demands some sort of sportsmanship on the field.

That one from Susan. 84844 if you want to get in touch. Now, two days to go until the general election. And today we are finishing up our political party interviews. In place of Rishi Sunak, the Conservative Party have put forward Maria Caulfield, Minister for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy. Welcome to Women's Hour. Good morning.

Now, why should women vote for your party? Well, I think we've done a huge amount for women, particularly in the last four years. So we have got the first ever Women's Health Strategy in England. It's a life course approach and it looks at some of the big challenges that women face across their lifetime. We got over 100,000 responses when we did our call for

evidence and there's some really game-changing changes that we've made from accessing HRT with the HRT prepayment certificate which is in place now right through to dealing with the menopause as a whole and getting a national conversation going about how women experience the menopause and how we can better support women right through to baby loss so we launched a few months ago the baby loss certificates for babies who are lost before 24 weeks and I cannot tell you how inundated we were with responses from people who completed the baby loss certificate to recognize the loss of a baby and it's those sorts of things that they're not driven by us as you know ministers they're driven actually by women who kind of told us what was really important for them and we've made some practical changes

that really make a difference and we will continue that work getting those national conversations going and there's some practical changes making a real difference. Let's get into some of the issues that our listeners brought to us for you. Women's safety is one. Are women safer now than they were in 2010 when the Conservatives came to power? Well I think I mean crime is down overall and that will have an impact on women as victims themselves but also for you know, family members that are impacted by crime. But we have, again, we've highlighted some of the specific issues that women face in relation to crime. We've brought in new legislation on domestic abuse, for example, making it easier for women to get help when they're in an abusive relationship,

and bringing all kind of departments together to try and support women through that so if women are in abusive relationship whether it's from banking through to housing there is much more support available and we have tried to to make changes to the court system for example so that if women are going through the process of trying to get someone prosecuted that that that is an easier process. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but absolutely there are some improvements that are there now that weren't there before.

The reports of domestic abuse have increased while the Conservatives have been in power, according to the ONS figures. In the year 2012 to 2013, for example, there were 1.2 million women who were victims of domestic abuse. Fast forward to 2022 to 2023, that number was 1.4 million. Yes, so that's increased reporting as well.

It doesn't necessarily mean there's an increased incidence, although there probably is an increase in some instances. But women are much more confident in coming forward because they know that they're more likely to get help and support than previously was the case and again you know whether it's accessing support for those women housing for for people even charities for example I know of a number of animal welfare charities who help women flee domestic abuse and look after their pets until they're in a settled environment. That wasn't happening, you know, a few years ago. So, you know, we are very much focused on it. There may be increased reporting,

but that is not the only figure that would be counted into that because a YouGov survey earlier this year found that 39% of women said they had not much or no trust in the police when it comes to the handling of the issue of violence against women and girls. And a quarter of women said the trust had actually gone down over the past year. Yes. And also we have kind of covered what classes as abuse as well. So very much the traditional view was if you were physically assaulted, that that was abuse.

But now we very much acknowledge that there's financial abuse, emotional abuse, all forms of abuse. So there's a much wider remit in terms of what we would take class as abuse. But I take your point on the police. And I think we have done a lot of work particularly with certain police forces where there has been clear evidence that when someone a woman goes to report being abused whether that's physical or emotional and that that hasn't been always taken as seriously as it should have been and you know I meet with women's groups all the times and and there is a distrust there with the police and that's why we call for kind of a review of the police forces themselves to look at who's working in the police service, to review their previous conduct, to make sure that there aren't perpetrators in the police force itself. But isn't that too slow? We're in the last two days before the general election.

These are issues that have been talked about for years at this point. Yes. If you look at the domestic abuse legislation that we brought in, it was a game changing piece of legislation a couple of years ago now, and it did get cross party support. If you look at what we're doing in the workplace, for example, only late last year did we bring in about sexual harassment in the workplace. So that isn't being tolerated either. And employers have to take more of a responsibility now for the safety of their, the people using their service,

but also their female workers. So we are changing the legislation. We have moved it, just as you're speaking there, you have moved it into the workplace where I was specifically talking about the lack of trust in the police.

Do the Conservative government take responsibility for that? Well, we're not responsible for operational matters of the police, but absolutely we take responsibility for improving the culture. But while it is in the workplace, it sends a general message to the wider population that abuse in whatever form, whether it's kind of wolf whistling or, you know, harassment is not acceptable. But if that happens and people go a legal route, the police are often the first front line that they will come up against. And that's why I mention

specifically the lack of trust that is there and has not improved with the Conservative government over the past year even. Well, I would say, you know, we are putting measures in place to make it much easier,

both reporting it to the police and trying to change that culture. You know, the Home Office have been very clear. Changed the police culture? Well, yeah. So that when a woman comes forward to make a complaint that it's taken seriously, that it's investigated properly, that the level of evidence needed is kind of at a level that, you know, isn't disproportionate. So some cases are not taken forward to the CPS when there is clear evidence of abuse. And trying to change that culture

isn't something you can change in legislation. It does take time to do. But if you look at how we've made changes to court proceedings, for example, to make it easier for women to give evidence, to try and get that prosecution rate up, there has been a significant change in that. But this does take time, you know,

for women to get confidence if they've had a bad experience. You can't just change that overnight. And the work that the Home Office has been doing has really been trying to focus on improving that better relationship so that if a woman makes a complaint, it's taken seriously

and they feel confident giving evidence. The Conservative manifestifesto does contain a lot of punitive measures, longer sentences for perpetrators of sexual assault, for example. But what can you point to that this government has done or is doing to prevent violence against

women? I'm talking about before the fact. So one of the key things we're doing is around education in our schools and changing the school curriculum and actually violence against women and girls is in the women's health strategy because we see it as a health issue and that it's everyone's responsibility not just the home office responsibility but the whole a whole government approach and the changes we're making to uh to some of the uh curriculum in schools is about

teaching about what a good healthy relationship looks like and teaching young women what is acceptable in a relationship and also young boys as well. And that is that is important in society at the moment, whether it's within the police force or outside in society at large. What is the Conservative government doing in that respect? Well, you know, as you pointed out yourself, we have increased the sentencing for some of the more serious... I'm talking about beforehand, unless you're considering somehow that a deterrent.

But I think beforehand it is about getting the messaging across to young women and girls what is acceptable. It's also about making sure that young boys know what a healthy relationship is about as well. I think you're moving back again to the younger generation.

I'm talking about the here and now people, a woman who is listening right now, wanting to know how their safety is being prioritised so that violence does not happen towards them. So, you know, some of the measures that we have done is around, you know, increasing... We measures that we have done is around, you know, increasing. We know that the particular groups of women who are more susceptible to experiencing domestic violence, and it's by improving support to those groups so that, again, so they know what should be acceptable behaviour or not.

That's kind of putting the onus on the woman, it sounds to my ear. No, it's about a whole community approach as well. So again, we know that there are certain communities of women where domestic violence is more prominent. You know, in my work in maternity, for example, the leading cause of death in new mums is suicide. And there is a correlation there with domestic abuse as well. So we know that we have, there's work going on with new mums,

pregnant mums, because we know that we have there's work going on with new mums pregnant mums because we know they're a particularly susceptible group and if they're experiencing domestic abuse But again that is very much focusing on the women and what I'm asking about is grown men and what work is being done with them or any

policies that have been introduced specifically if we want to take that if you even want to take that example of new mums or or some situations where you say there's a higher potential for abuse yes absolutely so we take it as a kind of a you know we give the example of new mums it is about working with that family unit and and supporting whether it's a pair of partners or you know dads in terms of you know what again what is acceptable and not acceptable behavior. Let's get specific on that so a new dad what is it that's happening is it a place that they're

going to is it a program how are people being identified? So we've got family hubs that we have set up in the last two or three years right across the country. And we've really targeted those areas where we know that there's populations that experience poverty, who have poorer outcomes, both in maternal and child health, where we know domestic abuse and violence is more prominent.

And the family hubs do a whole family approach. health where we know domestic abuse and violence is is more prominent um and there are um the family hub support do a whole family approach so yes young mums will be a key target of that because they're obviously uh the the people that we're trying to reach but it's the whole family so it's parenting courses it's support uh for uh dads if they're struggling, it's around getting better tools for life. So if they're struggling financially and there's pressures at home, whether there's kind of difficulty dealing with a new baby, they are given those support to be able to better cope with those. And if they're struggling, to be able to get those health care professionals in to support them. But what we do know with violence is that it happens across class lines, behind closed doors, in many different situations.

Yeah, and we can't pretend that we're able to eradicate that. But what we, and I know you don't want to necessarily focus on young people, but it is the fact that if you are from a young age made aware of what a good, healthy relationship is, and we do this at the family hubs as well. So new mums or pregnant mums coming through and dads

and families as a whole to say what a good, healthy relationship is. And if your relationship isn't healthy, if you're experiencing financial abuse, no access to your money or your bank account. And I feel you've made that point, Maria Caulfield.

Thank you very much. But let us stay with health care, but into a different aspect. And this is, as you know, many women mentioned the NHS as an aspect that they really want this election to try and solve. The birth trauma report published in May this year shows that the highest rate of litigation in clinical practice at the moment is for childbirth injuries. Why did it fall to an individual MP who had a traumatic birth experience,

that is your fellow Conservative, Theo Clark, to kickstart this inquiry? Because women have been telling you, I'm sure, as the party of the government for 14 years, that maternity services were failing them severely. Yeah so we didn't wait for that report and I think Theo acknowledges that in her inquiry that a lot of this work has already been started so for example we we estimate we can reduce birth trauma by about 20 percent a lot of it is preventable because a lot of it pretty quickly within and we're already seeing improvements already because a lot of it pretty quickly within within and we're already seeing uh improvements already

because a lot of it is quickly a year or is it five years no no it's it can be much quicker than that so what we've rolled out in the last 18 months is what's uh is pelvic perinatal pelvic health services across every single area of england so that women who are at high risk of birth trauma so big babies, small pelvis and other comorbidities are being assessed before they go into birth because they may need a cesarean section rather than a natural birth. But that only came about because of the Cumberland review into the pelvic mesh scandal, which of course, we've heard so many of the stories of women,

which was under the Conservative government's watch. So the Cumberledge review is a great example where Theresa May commissioned that because she was hearing of those experiences. And it was this government

that commissioned that report and have acted on that report. But the birth trauma is very, very different. And having perinatal pelvic health services across every part of England means we can prevent a significant amount the birth trauma is very very different um and having a perinatal pelvic health services across every part of england means we can prevent a significant amount of birth trauma but also those women who do experience it they've not been getting great care and those services now are helping women get access to physio to uh to kind of rehabilitation services and for subsequent

pregnancies as well to prevent future trauma and tears if they have more children that is reducing the incidence already and we have what's called an OAC care bundle which is now rolled out across England which is a care which helps midwives and teams assess women who are going into birth to again identify the risk factors and put in measures during that birth process to help reduce birth trauma and absolutely very quickly we can get those numbers down we won't be able to eradicate it uh completely but we can provide better uh postnatal care for those women who do experience birth trauma and that is separate to to to the mesh uh it's some women who experience birth trauma will need mesh uh or have had mesh in the past. And that's not gone well.

And let me move on to some of the other issues while I have you. A survey published yesterday by the Royal College of Nursing found that patients were being left in pain and to die alone amid NHS nurse shortages. They say only a third of shifts have enough nurses on duty. Manny would see that as an indictment on your government's policies. Well, you know, all these issues that we're talking about, whether it's birth trauma or end of life care, you know, these pressures are felt across all four nations of the United Kingdom. And Labour run the health service in Wales, the SNP in Scotland. But I'm asking about the Conservatives.

No, absolutely. But if it was just down to who leads, the political party that leads the health service in those countries, then you should expect to see a difference if one party is doing it better than the other. And we're not. And in fact, in Wales, where Labour run the health service,

waiting lists are 40% higher. And I know the listeners will really want to hear the Conservatives' policies on this. Let me give you an example. Yesterday in the Metro, there was a terminally ill woman who was forced to sleep on a hospital floor because of a lack of beds in A&E in Blackpool. Her name is

Madeleine Butcher. She's 62 years of age. She had ovarian cancer and was told she was likely suffering from sepsis. Her husband said she did later get a trolley but wasn't admitted to a ward for three more days. If you see the photograph, it is heartbreaking. The hospital has apologised and said the complaint would be reviewed. If your party is re-elected to run the country,

is this what people can expect more of? No, I mean, I've been a nurse. I've worked in A&E. When I was a nurse under the last Labour government, we had people sleeping in corridors. We had ambulances queuing around the block. You know, that isn't a new phenomenon. But you're saying it in a nonchalant way,

as if this is not something that is extraordinary or should not be tolerated. Well, I don't, you know, what I'm saying is that we have, if you look at what we've done, even the last 18 months, we did not see ambulances queuing around the block last winter. That's because we've created 10,000 virtual beds. So these are beds in the community where people can get the care that they need at home rather than having to be in hospital.

That has meant we've not had the same waits. Clearly, there are some hospitals where these incidences will occur, but they are not the norm. And people are, you know, our CAT2 calls for ambulances, for example, are down by 20 minutes. We are seeing our waiting list coming down that's because people are not staying in hospital in the length of time they were and they're getting discharged and their care packages are working

better that's not to say there are no problems but if you've seen the progress we've made in England where our ambulance times are better than Wales and Scotland, where our waiting lists are down compared to Wales. You know, we are making progress. And I'm very, very sorry to hear about that experience of that lady. And it's absolutely not what we would expect. But there will be times when the system is under pressure that those instances will occur. So I've got your thoughts on that. Let me move on to sex and gender, which have come up during this campaign.

Your manifesto promises to introduce legislation reinforcing that sex means biological sex in the Equality Act. And I want to know what real life implications that might have. Let me give you an example. Let's take a workplace changing room. A trans woman wants to use the female

facilities. A biological woman objects. You've two people with a right to respect and dignity and two sets of protected rights in the Equality Act. What should the manager do? Well, you know, we want to, we absolutely feel that it has to be on biological

sex. And you've seen the story of the nurses at the moment who are taking their employers to court over this because they do feel that it has to be on biological sex. And you've seen the story of the nurses at the moment who are taking their employers to court over this because they do feel that their privacy is not respected in relation to changing rooms. And, you know, we have to make some tough choices. And we do believe that this is a women's issue and that women are saying to us very loudly that they want to have those safe spaces of changing rooms, of toilets, of when they go into the NHS, they want to have those safe spaces of changing rooms of toilets of when they go into the nhs they want to be able to ask for someone of the same biological sex doing intimate procedures and the manager in that instance that i gave you well we would say to that manager that the biological sex does matter now does it supersede the trans person's protected rights? So there are protected rights

in the Equality Act for transgender people who are transitioning. But absolutely, we do believe in same-sex spaces based on biological sex. So that's a yes, that the biological women

should have that space before the trans person? Yeah, I mean, obviously, we'd encourage a practical solution, but if there isn't one, then yes, you know, women's, biological women should have priority. Ria Caulfield, representing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Many thanks.

Thank you so much for coming on Women's Hour. I want to come to the Labour Party next. We did, of course, invite their leader, Sir Keir Starmer, to come onto the programme. We did offer a variety of dates to have someone from the party represent him. They did not put somebody forward. I'm going to speak now to Ione Wells,

BBC political correspondent, to give you an idea of Labour's manifesto pledges regarding women. First, though, let's hear a reminder of one of the times that Sir Keir has specifically spoken about women during this election period. This was during the BBC Prime Ministerial debate.

This is when he and Rishi Sunak were asked how they would put women first. I have in my team as partners with me very, very good, strong women that will deliver for the country. Rachel Reeves would be the first woman Chancellor if we're elected into government. She worked, as you know, in the Bank of England and is very, very keen and strong on the fiscal rules and what we need to do for our economy. I've

got Angela Rayner, my deputy, who again has an incredible background coming from a difficult background where, you know, was a care worker for many years and now deputy leader of my party. And I'm very proud of her. And, you know, these people and plenty of others, Yvette Cooper, Bridget Phillips, and you name it, really good, strong women who will be part of my team. I think that leadership is about empowering your team and making sure it's a team on the pitch that are all batting and working together. And that's the way I lead, not suggesting for a moment that I'm the one with all the answers,

but knowing that if I lead my team and bring my team into this, and we work as a team and we'll serve as a team if we get the opportunity to do so, I will do it with some really fantastic, wonderful women who have been on this journey for me for four and a half years, changing our party to put it before the country with that, you know, essential principle, country first, party second. Keir Starmer there. So Ione Wells, our correspondent for politics this morning. Let's talk about Labour's pledges and policies. Women's safety is, for obvious reasons, an important topic for our listeners. What sort of pledges are Labour making when it comes is, for obvious reasons, an important topic for our listeners.

What sort of pledges are Labour making when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls? Good morning, Will. Their main sort of overall pledge on this particular theme is to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. They say they would do this in a number of ways, firstly by targeting perpetrators, but also trying to tackle some of the root causes

behind violence against women. So they say they want to set up specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force, but also treat the most harmful perpetrators with the same severity as terrorists and sort of perpetrators of organised crime, for example. They also have heavily criticised the prosecution rates for violence against women and girls, saying that many victims drop out of the criminal justice

process because of severe delays, often trying to go through that process, particularly in cases of rape and sexual assault. So they say they would fast track rape cases and they would do this by introducing specialist courts at every Crown Court in England and Wales. They also want to have domestic abuse experts in the 999 control room so that if people ring up in cases of domestic abuse, they can talk to a specialist. They can have legal advocates in every police force as well. is introduce more teaching of sort of healthy relationships and consent in schools to try and address the issues of misogyny, which they say is one of the root causes of sexual assault, for example. And they want police to have more powers to try and track some of these issues and identify potential sort of red flags that might highlight that somebody is potentially going to go on to commit one of these offences.

They also said they want to strengthen stalking laws. And particularly, one interesting point is they want to give women the right to know the identity of any online stalkers. And they also said that they would make spiking a criminal offence. This is something the government has talked about as well. One of the interesting other sort of points on a slightly different issue, they say they would strengthen whistleblowing laws as part of their sort of overhaul of workplace rights. They say that that would help to avoid workplace harassment. So these are all the kind of main pledges that Labour has put forward so far in its manifesto regarding tackling violence against women and girls. This is something that Keir Starmer himself has talked quite a lot about, particularly sort of citing his past experience as director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013,

where he says that he increased the number of domestic violence and rape convictions during that period. And that's something that he wants to sort of implement now as leader of the Labour Party, potentially, if in power, the next prime minister. Well, thank you for that on women's safety. I do want to turn to the NHS. We do know that Labour keep mentioning NHS waiting times. And we should say as well that there's also an issue in Wales where Labour are in charge of health there. What else are they promising?

That's right. Certainly NHS waiting times has been a huge factor in this campaign so far. Labour have particularly taken name at the Prime Minister because Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had set cutting waiting times as one of his five pledges. They have continued to go up. Labour said that they would address this by introducing 40,000 new appointments a week and sort of cut waiting times as a result. They say that this would be implemented by introducing more appointments, for example, on evenings and weekends, although they haven't been that specific about how they will incentivise staff to do that. They say they would provide some sort of incentives for NHS staff to provide those extra appointments. And they want to sort of reintroduce this target where nobody should wait more than 18 weeks for a non-urgent appointment.

They also said that they might use spare capacity in the private sector to try and address some of those waiting lists as well. Some of the other things that they pledge in the manifesto are doubling the number of cancer scanners, introducing hundreds of thousands of new dental appointments to try and address what they describe as a sort of crisis in NHS dentistry at the moment, but also recruiting 8,500 new mental health staff to try and allow people to get treatment for mental health issues more quickly.

They also want to introduce the return of a family doctor, the idea that people can see the same GP regularly and have somebody that they sort of know well, meaning that in theory, if you're being treated for a certain condition, you have the same person that you can speak to every time. They're familiar with your condition, for example. On strikes, that has obviously been something that's been cited by both Labour and the Conservatives as an issue

that has contributed in some ways towards waiting list times. One of the things that the Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has pledged if Labour gets into power is to get in the room and negotiate about pay with, for example, junior doctors. Now, Labour hasn't committed to giving the pay rises which junior doctors, for example, have asked for. They say that it's not something that's currently affordable, but they do say they want to kind of get in the room and try and negotiate. Again, not clear exactly, though,

how they would prevent further strike action as a result if they're not planning to match the pay requests that have been asked for. One of the other things as well is they want to give more prescribing rights for pharmacists. Again, something that the government has talked about as well, but trying to sort of divert more people to pharmacists as a way of getting access to certain types of medicines and treatments that they might otherwise have previously had to go to a GP for. One thing that they have talked about as well is trying to prevent illness rather than just sort of treating it after the event. So they've talked about things like matching the government's pledge

to gradually phase out smoking so that the next generation of people wouldn't be able to buy cigarettes legally, but also things like banning branded vapes, particularly those that seem to be marketed towards children with sort of colourful packaging and flavours, for example, also banning junk food ads to children and highly caffeinated drinks to under 16 year olds. So I think there's a kind of couple of policies in there that are

aiming to prevent ill health rather than just sort of pledge to treat it in different ways. And I will ask you just briefly on maternity care, if you can, Ione. That's right. Maternity is something that is mentioned specifically as well in the manifesto. They've talked about training thousands more midwives. One of the things as well that they have specifically said they want to do with the recruitment of more specialist midwives and more training is to close what they describe as the black and Asian maternity mortality gap. This is a reference to the fact that statistically, black and Asian women are more likely to die in childbirth than, for example, white women. And that's something that

they want to address by training more specialist midwives. Now, gender identity, that has become a hot topic during the election campaign. Some politicians and campaigners saying the issue is being used, and I quote, a political football. What is Labour's stance on sex and gender? That's right. Certainly, this has been a really heated debate. It's come up in a lot of the debates so far. Labour say they would ban conversion therapy, for a start, including for transgender people. So that's sort of banning the practice of trying to convert people who identify as gay, transgender, for example. They also want to modernise and simplify, in their words, the gender recognition law, doing what they describe as removing indignities for trans people

while still retaining the need to get a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria if you're to obtain what's known as a gender recognition certificate to sort of legally change your gender. They say that this would be something that people could obtain from a specialist doctor rather than a sort of full panel, and that they would scrap the need for people to prove that they've lived in their acquired gender or their sort of gender that they identify with, and instead introduce what they've described as a kind of two year reflection period before people can obtain this, a sort of period of reflection to decide if that is right for people. They have said that they would still want to protect single sex spaces.

At the moment, what the law says is essentially that people with a gender recognition certificate can access some single sex spaces in some circumstances. But they said that they would want to make sure that in certain circumstances, single sex spaces are protected. One of the reasons this has been a particularly sort of thorny issue for the Labour Party has been partly because of internal tensions about this. In 2021, for example, the Labour MP Rosie Duffield posted on social media that only women have a cervix, which was something that the Labour leader, Sakhir Starmer, said at the time was not right.

Although in a recent debate, he said that biologically, he does agree that a woman is somebody who has a vagina, a man, somebody who has a penis, but that some people don't identify with the gender that they are born with. And therefore, it's important to give people dignity. And he sort of said or clarified that those comments he made at the time were about what he saw as a sort of toxic atmosphere around the trans debate and said that he wanted to make sure that everybody was treated with dignity. And that was what he meant by saying those comments were not right. But certainly those comments have also triggered a backlash with notable figures like the author J.K. Rowling saying that Zakir's stance has meant that she would struggle to vote for him. That she was struggling to vote. And he was making a clarification, I understand, this morning, Keir Starmer, about women-only spaces in The Times this morning.

That's right. He's given a sort of broad-ranging interview with The Times. And one of the things that he mentioned when asked specifically if trans women with a gender recognition certificate have the automatic right to access single sex spaces. He said in this interview, although of course we've only seen the quotes in the interview in the newspaper itself, but he said that women don't have that right, which seems to be a sort of hardening of his stance there because previously in the campaign he has distanced himself or disagreed with the Tories' position, which is that they want to allow organisations to ban trans women from accessing their spaces if they want to.

So it's not quite clear what Zakir would want to do in practice. He has said, as I say, that trans women don't automatically have the right, just because they have a gender recognition certificate, to access single-sex spaces. But what's not clear is sort of what exceptions might be made, what power or not organisations would have to ban trans women, what rights trans women would have or not to access certain spaces. So I think some of the detail of this is still pretty thin, really,

about how some of this would work in practice. And before I let you go, a policy we've been looking at on this programme when it comes to different manifestos is childcare. What are Labour's pledges briefly? Well, Labour are basically matching what the Conservatives have said, that is to expand free childcare to 30 hours of government funded childcare per week for sort of 38 weeks a year. From the period at which a child is nine months old until they start school. Labour have said that they would also do this pledge that the government has announced. They've also said that they would open 3,300 new nurseries in existing primary schools, which they say have spare capacity because of the birth rate falling.

And they say that this would create 100,000 new nursery spaces. Now, some of the way this is going to be funded, they say, is by introducing that kind of VAT on private school fees, which is being used to fund a number of different school and education-related policies that Labour are proposing in their manifesto. Thank you so much, Ione Wells, BBC political correspondent. Thank you for summarising Labour's pledges and policies. We're not able to challenge the details of those policies without a party representative here.

But that does conclude our leader interviews for this general election. You can listen back to our conversations, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party of England and Wales, the Liberal Democrats, SNP and Reform UK, Conservatives, which you just heard, or maybe you've just tuned in. You can also find that on BBC Sounds.

And you can also, of course, get our debate that we had with seven senior women from the political parties. Go to our website where there is a dedicated election page. Now, by the time she was 19 the woman sitting opposite me had gone from a council estate in

London to the catwalks of Manhattan. Her twenties were a swirl of parties and high-end glamour but then in her thirties she was broke in need and as she once put it, a new personality is what she was looking for. And she was desperate to find a way out of fashion. So she reinvented herself as a stand-up comedian. And it sounds like a TV show.

And now some of it is. Michelle Desforte has written, created, and also stars in the brilliantly funny new comedy TV series, Bent, which is in part inspired by her own experiences and being on the other side of the modelling industry. I want you to hear a little bit of it. Here's Michelle's character, Mia, who's in trouble with her financial advisor after, I think we can call it some crazy spending. I can't come over here every day and this is urgent. You've got to bring down your spending

dramatically. Yeah, it's just like nice stuff. You spent $36,500 on brunch. You haven't had the brunch at Snap, have you? You've spent close to $14,000 on crystals. Over 12 months. You're making it sound bad because you're adding it all together. Like when you grow up with no money and then you get a big chunk of money, you've got to spend the poverty out of your system. Do you know what I mean? Like to celebrate. Spend the poverty out of your system. I have to say that line grabbed me, Michelle.

Welcome, welcome to Woman's Hour. You're having a giggle there. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honour. Well, let's talk about Mia. How did you find her? Is any of it based on you? I was dying to know when I was watching it. I cannot tell you how deep I had to dig to find that character. Not that far, actually. It's funny hearing a clip from the show because I'd like to be a bit further down the line than Mia is.

Still a little raw. Especially like this close to all the shops. I'm like, well, when I've finished here, clearly I need a little treat. Can you give me a figure of the highest amount of money you've ever spent on brunch? Well, no. I would rather not. Okay, we can leave it there. But what about, the show is called Spent, which is such a great name.

So this is talk about spending money, financially spent, emotionally spent? Yeah, yeah, all the above. And yeah, Mia is coming out the other end of having a sort of high-flying, you know, fortuitous life in fashion. And she's got a kind of consumerism hangover I guess after years of overspending and living beyond her means. And you were a young girl who a teenager really who went to Manhattan what was that like being catapulted onto catwalks really from a totally different life

in London? It was definitely a heady experience. And it wasn't all great, but I think the sort of lens that people look through fashion is like, it's amazing. And so you also tell yourself, it's amazing. It's not bad. There's a lot of worse jobs I've done before. But yeah, it's definitely a unique experience.

And I think when you come out the other end, although I've got a lot of great stories, you do have a slight bit of sort of battle fatigue, I think. Well, some of it you are putting it into spent. There is one episode I was watching, the second episode, I think, and there's a party where there's lots of models, some of them very young, and the language doesn't hold back. This was the line that said,

Epstein Island talking about this club, a reference to Jeffrey Epstein who died of suicide before his trial for sex trafficking but I suppose what you're doing there is you're trying to show some of the darker side or underworld of modeling particularly probably a number of years ago when you were starting out yeah I'm you know, you kind of can't sort of overlook the fact that many models start at 12, 13, 14. And you are, you know, there's sort of child labour issues as well in that because you're children. But because it's seen as fashion, you're allowed to go to these different countries without a chaperone. Maybe English isn't your first language.

Of course, the show is a comedy. Yes, and it's very funny oh thank you very much I loved it oh good thanks um so you kind of I mean I'm the same with stand-up which is wanting to highlight issues uh but not make it too weighty but definitely hopefully some sort of food for thought because even that when I'm listening to it, I was like, did they just say that? Yeah, yeah. So, to your point. But here's another one from an old article that is about you talking about going to the Notting Hill Carnival

in the 90s. And you said, I turn up thinking I look like a dancehall queen, but really was more urban Morris dancer. Which, you know, I know what you're talking about there. It's conjured it up in a second but where does that sense of humor come from and if you're comfortable talking a little about your family as well yeah I mean I come from a very like amazing eclectic mix of women and I grew up in you know matriarchal household and um you know working class and didn't always have access to stuff and also at times did and you know I grew up with hearing

women sit around a kitchen table and make jokes about things that I guess on the face of things seemed pretty grim but it was was always laughter, maybe some tears, but always laughter. Were you writing it down? How were you holding it? I know you have dyslexia as well, which I know was something else that you had to overcome, particularly as a writer when you're going to be working on a team, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wasn't writing it down. You don't realise, never in a million years did I think I'd be

sitting here on Woman's Hour speaking about a show that I'd written so no I wasn't writing it down but that kind of humour is instilled in you like it's part of your fabric and your makeup and

probably a coping strategy as well which is being able to find the humor in things that sometimes seem really depressing which depressing at times also uplifting the relationship as Mia the character portrays her relationship with her parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she does. And, you know, Mia returns back after living away for a long time. She's lived in a different country and she comes back and she's sort of trying to recalibrate, but she also hasn't had a lot of emotional growth, you know. So she's sort of come back and is still behaving very much

like the person she was when she left, which was a teenager. And, you know, her parents have got different issues that probably take a bit more, you know, thought and care and time. And Mia doesn't have the bandwidth for that at the time because she's kind of in the world of escapism. I love it. She gets such a burn from a teenager who says, like, you speak like a teenager, which Mia takes as as a plus and then like a teenager from years ago you kind of the language had moved

on and you're still stuck in the 90s I have to say that because I genuinely feel like that myself because I left at 20 and although I never lost my accent from living in the States you definitely didn't yeah but it also didn't progress. It didn't grow in any way. I still use the same slang that was sort of current in the early noughties. So yeah, still saying bruv in it and yeah, a lot. You talked there about escapism. I did read an interview where you said

your real drug of choice was escapism. It's not anymore? I mean, yeah, I still love a bit of escapism but you know now in a different way I guess you know what is it going on stage creating yeah yeah exactly you know getting to like create another world for other people to experience like the high of making people laugh but But if I'm honest, I also love some face products. So, you know what I mean? I'm like, oh, is that £100? It's probably really good.

This is radio. Your skin looks great. Whatever you're doing. Michelle Desmoires, thank you so much. Her show Spent is on BBC Two next Monday at 9pm. Really good fun.

And her stuff, TikTok, Instagram, you find are all over the place whether it's talking how long a period is or things about the Notting Hill Carnival. Great having you on, Woman's Hour.

Thanks so much for joining us. Tomorrow, a new exhibition opens at the National Gallery of Ireland. I'll be hearing about four women painters who shaped the Impressionist movement. Also, let me see, Jude Bellingham. I don't think it's fair to describe his gesture as a crotch grab.

Having seen it, it was more of a wave of a hand in front of his crotch. He didn't make contact with his body, which is what the term crotch grab implies. It would be inappropriate and offensive, but it didn't look like it was aimed at the opposite bench. That's from Katie. We heard one from each side. See you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4, this is Communicating with me, Ros Atkins.

This is the podcast where I talk to some of the best communicators, like legendary magazine editor Tina Brown, the Olympic athlete and broadcaster Michael Johnson, to find out why good communication really matters and how best to do it. Have you ever walked out of a meeting and thought, why didn't I make the impact that I'd intended to? Or perhaps you put down the phone to the bank without getting the answer you wanted. We all have dozens of interactions every day,

and this series will provide you with practical advice for communicating effectively during them. Communicating with Roz Atkins. Listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.